The music products known in the art enable search of music either through popular/latest showcases or search/tags. In such products, the user may end up listening to songs already known to him/her or newly introduced songs but user is not able to discover songs. Further, at different times during a day, user's preferences for a particular music may undergo changes, based on his mood and other considerations. The music products known in the art do not provide options to select song as per user's mood at a particular instant of time. Further, having selected and played a song based on search, the user every time when he/she wishes to hear the same song again, he/she has to search that song afresh. The users may like to save their discoveries of songs so that they can access and play the song again at any point of time. However, the music products known in the art do not have such functionality to save discoveries of songs.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,260,778 relates to a system for determining a current mood of a user and recommending musical compositions to the user based on the user's current mood. The system includes a feature extractor module, scanning module, a mood evaluator module, a learning module, a recommendation module, a database and an audio playback module configured to receive commands from playback controls. The scanning module gathers a list of songs and feature extractor module extracts a list of predefined metadata or acoustic feature from each song located by the scanning module. The learning module assigns a reward value based upon a user liking for a song. The mood evaluator quantifies a listener's mood based upon certain parameters like hour of a day, weather, whether in a party or lonely, The user interface shows the lyrics and genre of a song and other relevant information, list of songs to be played, play sequence, recommended songs, etc.
A limitation of the above system is that the mood of a listener is determined by the system and the songs are also recommended by the system. The mood is determined by the system by quantifying certain parameters like weather, time of day, current activity of listener, whether listener is in party or lonely, etc. The user has no option to indicate his/her mood and discover music according to his/her mood.
Another limitation of the above system is that after the system has recommended songs based on the mood determined by the system, the user has neither any option to refine/filter the songs in accordance with his/her preference for the category, era or tempo of songs.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,921,369 relates to mood-based organization and display of instant messenger buddy lists wherein graphical user interface is configured to display information about more than one co-user, mood associated with the co-user identity, user feedback element, privacy control to enable user to selectively block the display of user mood being perceived in the graphical user interface; and a contact list for facilitating instant messaging communications. The mood information may be based on the information expressly provided by the user. The mood information may be implicit from the particular song being listened by the user, e.g. if the user is currently listening to a song which is associated with ‘happy mood’, or the mood tag of the song indicates ‘happy mood’, the user's mood may be determined as ‘happy’. Once mood information is determined, it may be used to control play listing. To increase the efficacy of the mood-based playlisting system, a mood sensor such as camera may be used to capture an image of the user which may be analyzed to determine the mood of the user.
A limitation of the above system is that the mood is determined by the system based on the song being currently listened or by analyzing the image of the user captured by a sensor like camera, etc. The system does not enable a user to indicate his/her mood.
Another limitation of the system is that the user has no option to filter/refine the play-lists of songs on his/her preferences for category, era, tempo, etc. of music.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,764,311 relates to personalizing content based on mood wherein the mood-based playlisting system uses a camera to capture an image of the user, analyzing the image (like facial expression, etc.) to determine the actual mood of the user, identifying a desired mood state, comparing the actual mood to the desired mood state and based upon the results of comparison, selecting the content responsive to the user's determined mood. The mood state may otherwise be determined by using mood information for content selection (e.g. digitally-encoded song) or mood information determined by how a user is interacting with a media player. The system includes a communications interface, a playlist manager, a content library, a mood indicator library, a mood calculator and an optional mood-modeling engine.
A limitation of the above system is that the mood of the user is determined by the system primarily on the image captured by the camera and analyzing the image in terms of facial expressions, hair-related descriptors, brow, wrinkles on forehead, etc. The user has no option to indicate his/her mood or to filter/refine play-lists of songs based on his/her preference for category, era, or tempo of song.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,576,278 relates to a song search system and song search method to search for a desired song from among a large quantity of song data stored in a large-capacity memory means such as UMB, HDD and like based upon impression data that is determined according to human emotion. The song search system comprises a song data-input unit to input song data from CD, DVD, etc or from internet and output to a compression-processing unit and to a characteristic-data-extraction unit; an impression data-conversion data unit: a song data base; a song mapping unit; a song map memory unit, a song search unit, a PC control unit (like key board, mouse, etc.), a PC display unit (which is a display means), and a search-results-output-unit which can be connected to search results input unit of the terminal apparatus. The compression-processing unit compresses the song data and stores it into the song database along with the bibliographic data such as artist's name, song title, etc. The song search unit searches the song database based on the impression data and the bibliographic data input from the PC Control unit and displays the search results on the PC-display unit.
A limitation of the above song search system is based upon impression data that is determined according to human emotions. Thus it has no option for the user to indicate his/her mood or his/her preference for the category, era or tempo of the music.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,469,283 relate to a system for playing back media from a network, the system comprising a network enabled device, a network server module and a database. The network enabled device may include a media playback component that plays back streaming media files. Network server module is coupleable and communicates with network enabled device through the communication port. The database stores a plurality of addresses wherein each address locates a media network resource which includes files that can be loaded into the media playback component to output media. The network server module selects at least one address from the database based on the search criteria. The identified address is signaled to the network enabled device. The network server module causes the media playback component to playback the media resource located by the address. The user interface is provided with one or more features to enable the user to control the media playback component.
A limitation of the above system is that an address is selected from the database on the basis of search criteria. The system is therefore not suitable for discovery of music based on the mood selection or for filtering/refining the music discovery results on the basis of the user's preference for a category of music or for era of the song or for tempo of the song.
In light of the above discussion, there is a need for a system that provides improved music playing and searching capabilities.